them. We'll move in on Dawson and Klinger before they know what's happened."
  "I suppose it's possible."
  "Of course it is."
  "But what about the computer in Greenwich?"
  "We can deal with that later," Sam said.
  "How do we get to it?"
  "Didn't you say Dawson's household staff is programmed?"
  "According to Salsbury."
  "Then we can get to the computer."
  "And the cover-up here?"
  "We'll manage."
  "How?"
  "That's the least of our problems."
  "You're so goddamned optimistic."
  "I've got to be. So do you."
  Paul pushed away from the wall. "All right. But Jenny and Rya must have heard the 
shots. They'll be worried. Before we go to the mill, we should stop back at the church 
and fill them in, let them know where we all stand."
  Sam nodded. "Lead the way."
  about-Salsbury?"
  Later.
  They left by the rear door and started across the parking lot toward the alley.
  After a few steps Paul said, "Wait."
  Sam stopped, turned back.
  "We don't have to sneak around the long way," Paul said. "We're in control of the town 
now."
  "Good point."
  They circled around the municipal building and went out to East Main Street.
   
  11:45 P.M.
   
   
  Klinger stood in the velvety darkness, two-thirds of the way up the bell tower stairs, 
listening. Voices drifted down from above: two men, a woman, a child. Edison. And Jenny 
Edison. Annendale and his daughter...
  He now knew what was happening in Black River, what the carnage at Thorp's office 
signified. He knew the extent of these people's knowledge of the field test and of all 
the working, planning, and scheming that lay behind the field test-and he was shocked.
  Because of what he had heard, he knew that they were motivated to resist, at least in 
part, for altruistic reasons. He didn't understand that. He could easily have understood 
them if they had wanted to seize the power of the subliminals for their own. But altruism 
. . . That had always seemed foolish to him. He had decided a long time ago that men who 
eschewed power were far more dangerous and deadly than those who pursued it, if only 
because they were so difficult to fathom, so unpredictable.
  However, he also knew that these people could be stopped. The field test wasn't an 
unmitigated disaster; not yet. They weren't going to win as easily as they thought. They 
hadn't yet brought him or Dawson to ruin. The project could be saved.
  Overhead, they finished discussing their plans. They said good-by to one another and 
told one another to be careful and wished one another luck and hugged and kissed and said 
they would pray for one another and said that they really had to get on with it.
  In the perfect darkness, without a flashlight or even a match to show them the way, out 
of sight around two or three bends in the long spiral staircase, Sam Edison and Paul 
Annendale started down the narrow, creaking steps.
  Klinger's own hurried descent was masked by the noise that the two men made above him.
  He paused in the whispery, echo-filled nave of the church, where the walls and the 
altar and the pews were no more than adumbrated by the meager nocturnal storm light that 
shone through the arched windows. He wasn't certain what he should do next.
  Confront them here and now? Shoot them both as they came out of the stairwell?
  No. The light was much too poor for gunplay. He couldn't target them with any accuracy. 
Under these conditions he would never bring down both of them-and perhaps not either of 
them.
  He thought of searching quickly for a light switch. He could flip it on as they entered 
the nave and open fire on them in the same instant. But if there was a switch nearby, he 
would never find it in time. And if he did find it in time, he would be every bit as 
surprised and blinded by the light as they would be.
  Even if, by the grace of one of the saints depicted in these stained-glass windows, he 
did somehow kill both of them, then he would have alerted the woman in the tower. She 
might be armed; she almost certainly was. And if that was the case, the belfry would be 
virtually impregnable. With any sort of weapon at all-rifle or shotgun or handgun-and a 
supply of ammunition, she would be able to hold him off indefinitely.
  He wished to God that he were properly equipped. He should have at least those few 
essentials of behind-the-lines combat:
  a pretty damned good machine pistol, preferably German-made or Belgian, and several 
fully loaded magazines for it; an automatic rifle with a bandolier of ammo; and a few 
grenades, three or four. Especially the grenades. After all, this was no ladies' tea 
party. This was a classic commando operation, a classic clandestine raid, deep in hostile 
territory.
  Behind him, Edison and Annendale were unsettlingly close, on the last twenty steps and 
coming fast.
  He dashed along the side aisle to the fourth or fifth row of pews where he intended to 
hide between the high-backed seats. He tripped over a kneeler that some thoughtless 
member of the congregation had forgotten to put up after saying a prayer, and he fell 
with a loud crash. His heart hammering, he scrambled farther along the row toward the 
center aisle, then stretched out on the bench of the pew, flat on his back, the Webley at 
his side.
  As they came into the dark church, Paul put one hand on Sam's shoulder.
  Sam stopped. "Yeah?" he said softly.
  "Sssshhh," Paul said.
  They listened to the storm wind and to the distant thunder and to the settling sounds 
that the building made.
  Finally Sam said, "Is something wrong?"
  "Yeah. What was that?"
  "What was what?"
  "That noise."
  "I didn't hear anything."
  Paul studied the darkness that seemed to pulse around them. He squinted as if that 
would help him penetrate the inky pools in the corners and the purple-black shadows 
elsewhere. The atmosphere was Lovecraftian, a dank seed bed of paranoia. He rubbed the 
back of his neck which was suddenly cold.
  "How could you have heard anything with all that racket we were making on the stairs?"